Rockers set to return with fifth album after desert time

SHEFFIELD rockers Arctic Monkeys are tipped to release a new album later this year.

The quartet, from High Green, have been working in the Californian desert in the United States and are now set to release a fifth album.

Drummer Matt Helders is reported to have said: “Hopefully we’ll get it out this year - that’s the plan.

“We’ve just been working stuff out with the band. Nothing serious yet.

“It’s just been us four working stuff out like we used to I guess.

“We had a bit of a break. It’s always weird when you first get back into it to know what kind of songs we write any more.”

The band – singer Alex Turner, bassist Nick O’Malley, guitarist Jamie Cook and Helders – have already announced a series of festival appearances across Europe this summer, including France, Poland, Portugal and Croatia, and are heavily tipped to headline the Glastonbury Festival in Wiltshire in June.

The band’s first four albums – Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not, Favourite Worst Nightmare, Humbug and Suck It and See – all reached number one.